A Peek at My Week Before Thanksgiving Break - Kim

Hi everyone!  I hope you have had a good week so far and that Friday brings a great finish for you as well!  I am going to link up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for a Peek at My Week.

So my 6th grade math partners and I decided to finish up our unit on equations and inequalities before leaving for break.  We scheduled the test for Thursday to give us enough time on Friday for self-assessments, test corrections, celebrations, and of course, make-up testing.  We have really been into data as a school this year, which has prompted me to keep track of student data outside of just keeping a grade book.  I have found that I collect and analyze as many non-graded pieces of work during the week as I do graded pieces.  Here is how the week shaped up:

Monday - We finished discussing the last piece of new material (substituting into inequalities to find solutions) and assigned a short 6 question homework assignment.

Tuesday - We reviewed homework, completed a graphic organizer (made with a cute chevron pattern-maybe it will one day be in my TpT store), and did a ticket out the door.  Here is the best part:  The ticket out the door had 6 questions, one of each skill that the test was going to assess.  I let the students use their graphic organizer for one very important reason.  If they could be successful on the ticket out the door with their graphic organizer, but didn't do well on the test, I knew that they really just didn't study the material well enough to know what to do when.  If they couldn't get the questions correct even with the graphic organizer, I knew I would need to do more work with them on Wednesday.

Here is how I analyze data that is not in my actual grade book.  I have one master excel file that includes all 5 of my classes.  I have each student, any special information such as testing accommodations, and column after column of formative assessment data.  Once you get the excel file set up, it is just as easy to add information here as it is to a grade book.  I let excel do all of the calculations for me.  I have highlighted below how to let excel calculate the percent proficient for each particular assignment (I set it at 70).

The formula is (COUNTIF(P5:P25,">=70")/COUNT(P5:P25))*100

Wednesday - I arranged groups based on my ticket out the door data.  I do NOT record ticket out the door data into the grade book.  The average column is really for me to see more class information.  Also, in fairness to the students, a score of 4 out of 6 would cause the student to show up as not proficient.  This gives me good data to base instruction, but does not represent a fair grade in the grade book (in my opinion).  I retaught word problems with equations to the whole class (based on the data) and then made different activities for other areas of weakness.  I was able to pull 5-6 students to the back table to work with me, while other students worked on technology or practiced other self-correcting work independently.

Thursday - TEST Day!  After grading tests today, I am extremely pleased with the results!  It is so rewarding to see students who received not proficient scores earlier in the week make HUGE strides.  Sharing the data with the students can be a huge motivating factor if done correctly.  These types of formative assessments give students a way to get help in the area(s) they need it most. 

Friday - Tomorrow we will complete a self-assessment form (another potential TpT product that I have created) that will allow students to calculate their percent proficient in each sub-section of the test.  We will then work on test corrections.  As a reward, students that have made a proficient score will celebrate by bringing in a snack during class! 

This is the first year that I have ever kept numerical data on students outside of the normal grade book.  So far, it is providing extremely valuable information to help me meet students where they are.

Happy calculating,

Kim   

Activities Like This...Give Me Fun Feedback!

This is Kim and I am participating at http://imbloghoppin.blogspot.com/ for the "We Are Thankful For" linky party!

When I taught high school math I had a set of interactive voting devices.  Students would answer any multiple-choice or true/false questions using a little blue remote.  I do not have a set of these devices at my current middle school.  Most of the voting devices are quite expensive and some become outdated quickly as technology advances.  In the last 2 weeks, I stumbled on Polleverywhere.com.  You really, really should give this a try if you have access to computers, or if your students can BYOT (bring your own technology).  

Here's how it works.  First, you go to polleverywhere.com and create your first poll question.  It's FREE!  You can watch videos to see how easy it is to incorporate into your classroom.  For educators, there is a free plan that gets 40 responses per poll (that means for each question I ask, I can have up to 40 students respond at any one time).  Since I do not have a class with that many students, the free plan is working great right now.  There are, of course, some reasons to look into a paid version, but I am not quite there yet.  

So your polls can be multiple choice, open-ended, or even a type of question called "clickable image" which would be useful if you loaded an image like a map or a biology cell and had students identify parts.  The multiple-choice can even have images as the choices!  I have one poll that I created that asks "How do you feel about today's lesson?".  Students can click on a red, yellow, or green circle to give feedback.  Here is a screenshot of what students would see on their device:

You can be very specific in your questions or you can create more generic questions that can be used over and over.  If you look at this screenshot below, I have math specific questions, but then I also have 2 generic questions that I can activate at anytime.  

This is how I usually use polleverywhere.com.  I have them look at a handout that already has a multiple-choice question or other math problem to solve.  I select the appropriate poll.  If I have an open-ended math question, I have them type their answer into the poll text box and then add their name to the end.  I hide the answers on the screen so that they cannot wait to answer after they have seen what the majority of the class is answering.  If you have a "freeze" button on your projector's remote, you can freeze the screen so they cannot see each other's responses either.  

I then "PUSH" the poll down to the student's device.  This can be a classroom computer, a tablet, a smartphone, or any device that can access the internet.  The students simply go to your polleverywhere.com class website.  Once you have "pushed" the poll, the question is now live and students will see the poll live on their device.  

They answer the poll question and their response instantly goes on the screen.  You can hide the responses or choose to leave them visible.  The graphs are instantly updated and you can literally watch the answers come in!  If it is open-ended, you can set the visual mode to show a list of responses, a "wall" of responses, a "news-ticker" style response flow, or even a word cloud.  If the question is multiple-choice, you can see a horizontal or vertical bar graph.  

You can even click on "Response History" and get a easy to read list of responses.  On this page, you can choose to export the responses as a csv file (spreadsheet).  As you see below, you may need to have discussions about expectations with this type of technology.  This screenshot is from the first time I tried polleverywhere.com.  You can see that students are free to type anything!

QUICK OVERVIEW:

• Great for formative assessment.  Can be used as a ticket-out-the-door to set groups for the next class day.  Can replace using "sticky" notes on the board to see how students are responding.
• Great way to engage students in today's technology.
• VERY easy to set-up and use.  You can customize the look and feel of your polls.  You can download the poll questions into PowerPoint.  I have only scraped the surface of what this simple website can do.  
• Create generic questions that can be used quickly without having to spend time typing in polls.  I have one generic that says "What is the answer to this question?".  I have it set as multiple-choice and open-ended depending on the question we are working on.  I literally just "push" one of those questions down to the student devices and we are ready to respond.  
• Reserve your own polleverywhere.com website by clicking on the "How People Can Respond" dropdown on the right side of your poll question screen.  Find the blue link under "Web Devices".  It should lead you to a page to reserve your own web url.  Your students will just need to visit this one reserved page to access your polls.  They can also text in their response if you are ready to handle that!

I am a huge fan of the instant feedback that this website can provide!  In this age of data and accountability, it gives me a way to get usable data and engage students at the same time.

Here is what it looks like being used in my classroom:

Oh, I used an app called "Skitch" to annotate over the screenshots above.  Try it out too if you get a chance!

Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Happy polling!

Kim

Techie Tuesday - Use Remind101!

Hello everyone!  This is Kim here bringing you a quick technology idea.  I am posting a "new idea" that corresponds to the "We Are Thankful" linky party hosted by http://imbloghoppin.blogspot.com/.

I am also linking up with Techie Tuesday at TechnologyTailgate.com, so hop over and check out more technology ideas when you get a chance!

We all want an efficient easy way to communicate with parents, the community, and even students (when age-appropriate) about classroom activities and assignments.  We use classroom newsletters, weekly folders, and agendas to send messages home via paper.  As technology has improved, we are maintaining classroom websites or blogs.  Even though each of these communication tools is very useful and necessary, sometimes a quick message home via text message gives parents enough information to prompt students on what assignments are upcoming or due.  Enter...Remind101.com!

Go to Remind101.com to sign up for your free account.  All phone numbers are private and messages are one-way.  This is a great way to communicate without having to use your personal cell phones!  

Once you sign-up, you will arrive at a screen that looks similar to this:

You can set up multiple classes so that you can send specific messages to certain groups of students. Are you a coach too?  Set up a group for your athletes!  If students or parents do not want to get involved with receiving text messages, they could sign up to receive emails instead.  Your messages are limited to 140 characters, so you do have to be very concise.  Talk about a great way to get teach students to stick to the point.  Have them write the remind101 message for the night!  One of the BEST things is that you can schedule the message to go out later in the day.  I usually write my messages during the day while I am thinking about it, but I schedule them to go out around dinner time.  

I send messages out 3-4 times during the week to help my students remember to complete homework or remind them to study for an upcoming quiz.  I also include messages that give parents an idea of when the next test might be scheduled.  When you are ready for students or parents to subscribe, look for a blue button that says "invite students and parents".  You will get a printable page that looks like the one below.  It will have a number and message to text for subscribers to use to access your messages (removed from image below).  

Are you a school leader or guidance counselor?  Remind101 can also be used to communicate messages about school events or important school deadlines.  

At the middle and high school level, you may find that both parents and students are subscribing to the text messages.  If you want an easy, quick way to communicate short messages, give Remind101.com a try!

Happy Reminding!

Kim

(I was in no way compensated for my post.  It is my own opinion as a result of experience!)

Tried It Tuesday - BYOT Student Voting & Formative Assessments

Hello everyone!  This is Kim bringing you a technology idea for your classrooms.  I tried this within the last 2 weeks and I am sold!  I am linking up with Tried it Tuesday by Fourth Grade Flipper again.  

When I taught high school math I had a set of interactive voting devices.  Students would answer any multiple-choice or true/false questions using a little blue remote.  I do not have a set of these devices at my current middle school.  Most of the voting devices are quite expensive and some become outdated quickly as technology advances.  In the last 2 weeks, I stumbled on Polleverywhere.com.  You really, really should give this a try if you have access to computers, or if your students can BYOT (bring your own technology).  

Here's how it works.  First, you go to polleverywhere.com and create your first poll question.  It's FREE!  You can watch videos to see how easy it is to incorporate into your classroom.  For educators, there is a free plan that gets 40 responses per poll (that means for each question I ask, I can have up to 40 students respond at any one time).  Since I do not have a class with that many students, the free plan is working great right now.  There are, of course, some reasons to look into a paid version, but I am not quite there yet.  

So your polls can be multiple choice, open-ended, or even a type of question called "clickable image" which would be useful if you loaded an image like a map or a biology cell and had students identify parts.  The multiple-choice can even have images as the choices!  I have one poll that I created that asks "How do you feel about today's lesson?".  Students can click on a red, yellow, or green circle to give feedback.  Here is a screenshot of what students would see on their device:

You can be very specific in your questions or you can create more generic questions that can be used over and over.  If you look at this screenshot below, I have math specific questions, but then I also have 2 generic questions that I can activate at anytime.  

This is how I usually use polleverywhere.com.  I have them look at a handout that already has a multiple-choice question or other math problem to solve.  I select the appropriate poll.  If I have an open-ended math question, I have them type their answer into the poll text box and then add their name to the end.  I hide the answers on the screen so that they cannot wait to answer after they have seen what the majority of the class is answering.  If you have a "freeze" button on your projector's remote, you can freeze the screen so they cannot see each other's responses either.  

I then "PUSH" the poll down to the student's device.  This can be a classroom computer, a tablet, a smartphone, or any device that can access the internet.  The students simply go to your polleverywhere.com class website.  Once you have "pushed" the poll, the question is now live and students will see the poll live on their device.  

They answer the poll question and their response instantly goes on the screen.  You can hide the responses or choose to leave them visible.  The graphs are instantly updated and you can literally watch the answers come in!  If it is open-ended, you can set the visual mode to show a list of responses, a "wall" of responses, a "news-ticker" style response flow, or even a word cloud.  If the question is multiple-choice, you can see a horizontal or vertical bar graph.  

You can even click on "Response History" and get a easy to read list of responses.  On this page, you can choose to export the responses as a csv file (spreadsheet).  As you see below, you may need to have discussions about expectations with this type of technology.  This screenshot is from the first time I tried polleverywhere.com.  You can see that students are free to type anything!

QUICK OVERVIEW:

• Great for formative assessment.  Can be used as a ticket-out-the-door to set groups for the next class day.  Can replace using "sticky" notes on the board to see how students are responding.
• Great way to engage students in today's technology.
• VERY easy to set-up and use.  You can customize the look and feel of your polls.  You can download the poll questions into PowerPoint.  I have only scraped the surface of what this simple website can do.  
• Create generic questions that can be used quickly without having to spend time typing in polls.  I have one generic that says "What is the answer to this question?".  I have it set as multiple-choice and open-ended depending on the question we are working on.  I literally just "push" one of those questions down to the student devices and we are ready to respond.  
• Reserve your own polleverywhere.com website by clicking on the "How People Can Respond" dropdown on the right side of your poll question screen.  Find the blue link under "Web Devices".  It should lead you to a page to reserve your own web url.  Your students will just need to visit this one reserved page to access your polls.  They can also text in their response if you are ready to handle that!

I am a huge fan of the instant feedback that this website can provide!  In this age of data and accountability, it gives me a way to get usable data and engage students at the same time.

Here is what it looks like being used in my classroom:

Oh, I used an app called "Skitch" to annotate over the screenshots above.  Try it out too if you get a chance!

Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Happy polling!

Kim